Knowledge production for interdependent critical infrastructures: Constructing context-rich relationships across ecosociotechnical boundaries

Abstract

This article is a theoretical, hypothesis-building exercise to be subsequently tested at the Solutions-Driven Community Center (SDCC) in Austin, TX. We argue, as pragmatists generally do, that the most useful knowledge is produced in action, rather than by reasoning. If this premise is granted, it follows that the Modern division of labor is also the division of knowledge--in limiting what we do in the world, we also limit what we know of the world. The resulting problem is that the compartmentalization of knowledge has catalyzed a host of unwanted ecological, sociological and technological (or ecosociotechnical) consequences. One such consequences, climate change, has become most visible in the study of interdependent, critical infrastructures (or ICIs).Modern infrastructure, we find, reflects the classical organization proposed by Critical Theorists--infra-structure (technologies and the social organizations which operate them) characterizes and implements the relationship between super-structure (broad structures of political economy), and social-structure (patterns of everyday life). We argue that it is the nature of these relationships that influence the quality of life; be it controlling and competitive or collaborative and creative.In response, the research team appropriates and hybridizes six academic territories as a generalizable theory, or method, to simultaneously study and renovate ICIs in the U.S. Critical pragmatism is a method to align frames of interpretation through collective action in Austin.